---
title: Perhaps you think that fishes were always fishes, and never lived an… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Perhaps you think that fishes were always fishes, and never lived anywhere except in the water, but if you went to Australia and talked to the black people in the sandy desert in the centre of the country, you would learn something quite different. Who acts: you, fishes. A sentence of «The Lilac Fai
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/17/68/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 68

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Perhaps you think that fishes were always fishes, and never lived anywhere except in the water, but if you went to Australia and talked to the black people in the sandy desert in the centre of the country, you would learn something quite different.

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**Who acts:** you, fishes · **What happens:** think, be, not live, go, talk, learn · **To what, where:** Australia, sandy desert, something

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, fishes), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3454:17:68
# text = Perhaps you think that fishes were always fishes, and never lived anywhere except in the water, but if you went to Australia and talked to the black people in the sandy desert in the centre of the country, you would learn something quite different.
1	Perhaps	perhaps	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	think	think	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
5	fishes	fish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	8	advmod	_	_
8	fishes	fish	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	anywhere	anywhere	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	12	advmod	_	_
14	except	except	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	Australia	Australia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	talked	talk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	conj	_	_
27	to	to	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	_
31	in	in	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
33	sandy	sandy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
34	desert	desert	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
35	in	in	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
36	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	37	det	_	_
37	centre	centre	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nmod	_	_
38	of	of	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
39	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	40	det	_	_
40	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	44	punct	_	_
42	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	44	nsubj	_	_
43	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	44	aux	_	_
44	learn	learn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	conj	_	_
45	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	44	obj	_	_
46	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	47	advmod	_	_
47	different	different	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	45	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
48	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | present | you |  |  |  |  | perhaps *property* | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | fishes |  |  |  |  | always, fish *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **live** | past | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | except the water; anywhere *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **go** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | you |  |  | Australia |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to australia=Initial\_Location |
| 5 | **talk** | past | you *not said here* |  |  | the sandy desert in the centre of the country |  | to the black people | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to people=Co-Agent |
| 6 | **learn** | would | you | something |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Topic |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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